The farmers would put out scraps
for the animals, and she’d jump for
it. She was hungry; let the animals
fend for themselves. There were
times when she literally ate dirt.
She would go down to the river,
take the clay from the riverbank,
and mix it with the water to make a
grayish kind of milk. She’d drink
that to feel full.
But my mother was blessed
that her village was one of the
places where a mission school had
contrived to stay open in spite of
the government’s Bantu education
policies. There she had a white
pastor who taught her English. She